Desmond Tutu

South African Anglican archbishop, theologian, anti-apartheid activist, Nobel Peace laureate (1984), and chair of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission — the man who coined the phrase 'rainbow nation' and who, with the Dalai Lama, anchored two decades of public conversation between Christian and Buddhist teachers of joy. Born 1931 in Klerksdorp, Tutu became the first Black Archbishop of Cape Town in 1986; from that pulpit he opposed apartheid in moral, theological, and (when church discipline allowed) political terms, then later spoke against the policies of the post-apartheid African National Congress with the same unflinching voice. His teaching is built on ubuntu — 'I am because we are' — and on the conviction that forgiveness, while costly, is the only sustainable path to a shared human future. He died in Cape Town in 2021.